I yanked the cover from my bright green John Deere riding lawn mower with the ergonomically correct yellow driver seat and checked carefully for any creepy crawlies that might have taken sanctuary.

I gave it a quick squirt of bug insecticide. Better safe than sorry. You never can tell what might be hiding under the engine cover.

Checked the gas level. The tank was half full. It would have to do. The gas can was so heavy, I couldn’t lift it.

Yes, it was time.

I climbed up, put my left foot on the brake and turned the key.

“Ah ugg ga,” said the mower.

I tried again. “Ah ugg ga.”

Totally frustrated, I dragged out my cellphone and called son Andrew.

Thankfully, he answered right away.

“Boo,” I said. “This is your Mother. I am sitting on my riding lawn mower and cannot get it started. Do you have time to talk me through it?”

Straight away, he asked, “Did you have your foot on the brake?”

“Yes, I did,” I said rather smugly. I had remembered that much and continued “but, when I turned the key, all it would do was go ‘ah ugg ga.’”

“Put your foot all the way down on the brake” and repeat it again pronouncing each syllable as though I could not understand English. “Put your foot all the way down.”

“I am, I am,” I said, pushing down with my left foot so hard, my Achilles tendon screamed.

“Now,” he said, “Turn the key.”

I did and wouldn’t you know, that engine started right up, making so much noise I am not sure that Boo heard me yell my thanks.

If truth be known, there isn’t much grass to cut, only an area the size of a badminton court. It’s centipede grass and likes sunshine. Most of our lot is shady with magnolias, pines and oak trees.

We used to have more grass. We did the usual watering and fertilizing and in those days before we got the J.D. Sit Upon, I walked back and forth with the push-push mower. Great exercise.

Then, one year, I gave up. I admitted defeat. I simply could not or rather, would not rake another leaf. Every spring, the oak trees would push off their old dry dead leaves to make room for new growth. Tons and tons of leaves covered the grass.

We raked and raked. We got to be expert in devising ways to collect the leaves onto tarpaulins and drag them down to a place we designated as super mulch corner.

No more. We would go au natural.

Now, when we mow, it’s to chop down weeds that thrive no matter where and to trim that little patch of grass that grows in the sunlight.

And I am absolutely positive the next time I go to start my John Deere riding lawn mower, I will remember to push my foot all the way down on the brake.